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"Decoding De Kooning" - Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie

Swarms of ants and birds set off to decode a complex painting by Willem De Kooning in their own swarmic way. The step-by-step behaviour of the swarms is detailed in.

This video displays consecutive cycles of the behaviour of the swarms. A cycle begins when swarms choose a line from the canvas on the right and produce their interpretation of that line on the canvas on the left . Once they have reproduced all the lines, they start a new cycle where they use the outline of what they have just created to generate a new interpretation of it.

Over time, the swarms eat away the lines, simplifying the structure of the original painting. This leads to a simpler line structure which ultimately results in an empty canvas.

This artwork originated from an exchange with Profs. William Latham, Frédéric Fol Leymarie and Mark Bishop.

To see the videos click here: mp4 , mov,